How Trump starts each day

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump tweets from bed, "hate-watches" television, hogs the remote and drinks a dozen Diet Cokes a day.

Gathering interviews from 60 advisers and others who have worked closely with the president, a New York Times profile has laid out just how the man who was "utterly unprepared" for the world's most powerful job goes about it.

According to top aides, Mr Trump told his closest advisers to think of each day in his presidency as "an episode in a television show in which he vanquishes rivals".

Advisers describe Mr Trump's daily schedule as an hour-by-hour battle, and have shared how his habits are "redefining what it means to be president".

The President's day starts at about 5.30am, when he wakes and watches Fox & Friends on Fox News, iPhone in hand and propped up on a pillow. Occasionally he'll also watch the slightly more lowbrow Morning Joe on MSNBC because, the article notes, "friends suspect it fires him up for the day".

This is Mr Trump's optimum tweeting time, insiders say. Sometimes he does it while sitting up in bed, sometimes from the den next door in front of another television, and occasionally, in the Treaty Room just up the hall from his White House bedroom.

If the President starts his day with phone calls rather than Twitter blasts, this is where he does it. But he'll sometimes be still "in nightclothes".

According to The New York Times, the President's rogue tweeting has become such an issue that White House chief of staff John F Kelly has made an effort to "reduce the amount of free time the president has for fiery tweets by accelerating the start of his workday".

But still, senior aides are lucky to get Mr Trump to arrive for meetings by 9am or 9.30am.

Although he is in and out of meetings and other engagements, advisers estimate the President spends at least four hours in front of a television each day - sometimes twice that - and more time with the set on mute so that he can still see and comment on the scrolling headlines.

"No one touches the remote control except Mr Trump and the technical support staff - at least that's the rule," the article says.

He also remains an "avid newspaper reader", and marks up the papers using a black Sharpie pen, leaving comments on the stories he does and doesn't like, the article claims.

A nightly meal at the White House allows Mr Trump to entertain guests - something his years in the hotel industry have left him with great enthusiasm for.

He loves giving tours of the White House and "has an odd affinity for showing off bathrooms", advisers told the Times.

During the usually gossip-filled dinner, he polishes off plates of "well-done steak, salad slathered with Roquefort dressing and bacon crumbles, tureens of gravy and massive slices of dessert with extra ice cream".